India plans to provide free anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — to around 100,000 people by early next year, a top health official said, as this nation struggles with the largest number of AIDS infections in the world.

I can't help it, I have to join the fun. Rush Limbaugh was arrested for illegally transporting Viagra using a prescription that was not in his name. He is of course violating a plea agreement after he admitted being addicted to pain medication. He is in real trouble now. It is all the more interesting now that we are talking about Viagra. Exposing conservative hypocrisy is always a good thing to do as Bob Cesca shows on the Huffington Post.

It is the damage to his masculinity however that interests me most. The fierce masculine talking Limbaugh can't get it up. What a man is that? I mean, really, for all his bullying, he apparently doesn't have it where it counts. Isn't that the best metaphor for the conservative movement?

Here we go again. A new study suggests, according to the Washington Post, that "Many men are gay because of biological differences wrought by their mothers before the boys were born." However, "The mechanism behind this apparent maternal alchemy remains a mystery." So we have a situation of wild speculation once again portrayed as science. Why is it that biologists and psychologists can get away with this? How can you say that the mother's womb is the place where homosexuality is determined and have no clue as to the mechanism that does that? Statistics you say. "No similar links have been noted for lesbianism. And even among boys, the birth order effect -- which becomes a prominent influence in boys with two or three brothers or more -- accounts for only about one in every seven gay men, Bogaert and colleagues have calculated." So, for six out of seven men another explanation for their sexual orientation should be found. Why is this news?

Well, I suggest that the reason this is news lies in the other part of the first sentence of this article, which says this is "a study that opens a new and contentious front in the same-sex marriage wars." So what we have here is not science, but a political debate. I know that many think that if homosexuality can be found to be inborn, than a greater support for gay marriage is likely. There is some evidence for this in polls. However, I remain unconvinced, too much formed by my European history that shows that people can be killed in mass numbers for inborn differences such as disabilities or being Jewish. Europeans have no monopoly to making inborn difference the basis of severe discrimination and mass murder. America's racism has claimed many victims.

I am glad that we don't have to hide the political nature of biological research, though I suspect that several of the researchers would be shocked, shocked I say, by the suggestion that there is anything political about their work.

I am curious though. How can we biologically explain a phenomenon that has a history of no more than 175 years? Really, that is a very speedy evolutionary development.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 22 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court set a new standard for sexual harassment Thursday, defining retaliation as any act that would make an employee reluctant to complain.

The justices ruled unanimously in favor of a woman working for the Burlington Northern railroad who was suspended for 37 days after she complained of being transferred from forklift operator to laborer. Eight justices joined in Stephen Breyer's majority opinion, while Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion agreeing with the result but not the legal standard.

The ruling sets a national standard that makes getting compensation for retaliation easier in most of the country.

As the lights went up after Frameline's only screening of George Michael: A Different Story, our companion remarked "That wasn't a different story at all!" Unfortunately, he was correct, as very little in this documentary detailing the trials and tribulations of Michael's career as an "international superstar" was new news to us -- and we haven't purchased a George Michael album since 1987's Faith.

Well, I suppose every film they put in the Frameline festival can't be good. Gotta love the shot of ol' GM, though!

Yesterday, President Bush signed new legislation to increase fines for "broadcast indecency," as reported in the Washington Post. Broadcasters who violate standards will have to pay fines ten times as high as they did so far. Let's not have a first amendment debate right now. Let me say what I think is indecent:

"It's just a number."

That is what Tony Snow said when he was asked about the number of american soldiers who had died in Iraq. That number reached 2500. "it's just a number." A naked breast on TV can stir you, but if this doesn't make you cry, you have no heart.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Well, I'm not sure why this is a gay issue, per se, I mean, any time three or more people are in a romantic relationship, there's some homo going on, barring some creative gender identity transitions; I guess I'm glad they're covering the issue though, give the big yawn of Big Love.

When Pete Chvany feels like kissing his partner Alan Hamilton on the front lawn of their home in Somerville, Mass., he doesn’t really care what the neighbors think. And he doesn’t mind if Hamilton then gives a kiss to his wife of 22 years, Pepper Greene, or to Hamilton’s other male partner, Woody Glenn.

“Anyone who’s watching is getting an eyeful,” says Chvany, who has been involved in the polyamorous relationship for nine years. “We are out to people in our neighborhood. In effect, Alan has three partners, and we are all his family.”

The quartet are among an unknown number of people in the gay and lesbian population who are in a relationship with more than one partner,

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

I posted earlier about the Roughgarden book, and today found this *smart* piece discussing it. I certainly hope (but don't have his optimism) that evolutionary biologists are the flexible thinkers he says they are...

Here's a tidbit, but the whole post is worth reading!

Go ahead and read the article; I think Roughgarden makes a good case that this has considerable utility in social groups, and she's done some modeling that shows that this is, theoretically, a valid path to stable communities. There are objections that this requires group selection, which always puts an idea on shaky ground, but it seems to me that a willingness to settle problems erotically rather than in risky combat would also have possibilities of direct advantage to the individual.

Where I have reservations, though, is that it is a conclusion drawn from the premise that a common feature must have a genetic component. I don't see that. Show me that homosexuality is genetically heritable, and then this will be a more likely hypothesis.

Still, I generally agree with the idea that sexual activity is about far more than just reproduction. I think you'd be very hard pressed to find any biologist who finds that in the least controversial.

Ah well, we were never so keen on academic freedom here in America, anyway...

PROVO, Utah -- Brigham Young University has decided not to rehire a part-time instructor because he publicly opposed the Mormon church's stand against marriage for same-sex couples.

Jeffrey Nielsen, a philosophy instructor at the church-owned university, said in an op-ed piece for the June 4 edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, "I believe opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral."

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have spent millions of dollars campaigning against gay marriage and on May 28 called on members to support a constitutional amendment banning it.

Nielsen, a Mormon, said he learned of the school's decision regarding his employment in a June 8 letter from Daniel Graham, chairman of the Department of Philosophy.

"Since you have chosen to contradict and oppose the church in an area of great concern to church leaders, and to do so in a public forum, we will not rehire you after the current term is over," the letter said.

Erotic images elicit faster and stronger electrical responses in a woman's brain than other images ranging from pleasant to disturbing.

The finding might not sound surprising, but researches did not expect responses to erotic images to emerge so quickly, apparently involving different circuits than the processing of other images.

"That surprised us," said study leader Andrey Anokhin of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "We believed both pleasant and disturbing images would evoke a rapid response, but erotic scenes always elicited the strongest response."

This seems interesting, given how quickly we assume it's men who are most stimulated visually; perhaps it's that women are stimulated differently than men and we just didn't notice before? Or care? 'Cause that never happens.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

So, it goes without saying that hate crimes are morally repugnant and tragic evidence of our country's race/sexuality/class/gender tensions. Hate crime laws typically cover many of these categories - generally the ones that get left out, of course, are sexuality and gender (as in, transgender).

Kevin Aviance was brutally attacked on First Avenue in NYC last week while walking home from the Pheonix. If you don't know, Kevin is a *fabulous* singer / performer whose songs have topped the dance charts various times over the past few years. I've danced my night away more than a few times to his tunes.

The news coverage about this vicious crime pegs it as homophobic. Yea, I get that. But the thing is - it has a lot to do with gender as well. And, seeing as how Aviance is black, race may very well have played into it as well. It's unclear from the coverage I've read what the races of the attackers were.

Categorizing the crime as just about homophobia is really perhaps a bit inaccurate. We can imagine that a gay man walking alone at night whose gender perfomance resembles, say, a NFL Linebacker might not face the kind of attack that Kevin did. It really has more to do with gender than it does with sexuality. Though he wasn't in drag at the time of the attack, Aviance out of drag still reads as effeminate.

This is different from Matthew Shepard's murder. It seems that his murder has a *lot* to do with the sexuality of Shepard, not as much to do with his gender performance. These are things that should be noted when examining hate crimes. There's a tendency to quickly squash all subtleties of these kinds of things and say it was singularly about race / gender / sexuality - when really it could be about all of them (or none of them!).

When Southern Baptist Convention delegates head to their annual soiree in Greensboro, NC tonight, they will be greeted by folks from Westboro Baptist Church, who'll be on hand to "picket the idolatrous Southern Baptist Convention as they worship the 10-foot graven image of Billy Graham." Primarily becasue of what they consider Graham's soft stance on homosexuality, Westboro declares via press release that "[t]he worshippers (Southern Baptists) and the worshippee (Billy Graham) are all Hell-bound heretics."

::sigh:: When are we gonna stop this senseless Baptist on Baptist hate? Girls, you're both pretty...disapproving of us. Shouldn't that be a uniter, not a divider? Honestly.

It remains to be seen how the SBC will respond to the Westboro protesters; however, our Southern roots lead us to predict that they'll smile and be nice to their faces but then proceed to talk about them behind their backs. All Greensboro gays who are looking for a place where they can get disapproved of indoors and also crazily cast off to Hell outdoors, then go check out the scene and report back.

Monday, June 12, 2006

I thought you should see this. Young people are using bracelets as codes for desired sex. They play games with them as well. It all reminds me of handkerchiefs that gay men used back in the 70s to tell each other what kind of sex they wanted. Young people, like gay men, are not supposed to have sex, are being supervised, and thus develop codes to be secretive. More supervision and oppression won't be the answer (typical reaction by the media, schools and others in the public eye). Acknowledgment of young people as sexual beings will. You cannot really say no, unless you can imagine saying yes too.

Isn't it funny how comics and superheros are goin' all unbelievably obviously gay? Check it out from the SF Chronicle: Queer Hero:

One nice thing about a title such as "The Fabulous Adventures of Captain Queer" is that you can pretty much tell what it's about right off the bat. Pirates, right? Maybe the French Foreign Legion? "Cop Rock"?

OK, maybe it's not entirely obvious, but Captain Queer is a gay superhero, the alter ego of a high school nerd bitten by a radioactive ladybug.

The most expensive, hugest grossing, and may I say quite fabulous film ever made about gay persecution and subsequent rebellion has hit the screens. And already there's talk about sequels. Yes, we're talking Die Hard country here.

But is X-Men gay? Just trek over to the official Web site for this synopsis: "They are mutants, genetically gifted human beings -- the world's newest and most persecuted minority group." Even a special school has to be created for the mutant youth as a safe haven. (Hey, we have a few of those.)

Of course, there are other minorities out there who will claim this deliriously entertaining comic book adaptation is about them. But just let's say with a gay director (Bryan Singer), an openly gay star as the lead Larry-Kramer-like hero/villain (Ian McKellen), a straight star who takes it as a compliment when he's labeled gay (Patrick Stewart), and a hunky Aussie actor who played Curly in a London production of Oklahoma (Hugh Jackman) as Wolverine, there's a gay sensibility pirouetting here.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Atrocious what happens when corrupt politics take over science. HPV doesn't do us boys much harm - but 1 in 10,000 women infected with HPV (Human Papillomavirus) develop cervical cancer. Doesn't sound like much, until you realize that a great majority of the population is HPV+. 6,000 women die each year from cervical cancer.

This vaccine has been on the table for a *long* time now - and has been stalled by Republican politicians arguing that approving such a vaccine would promote promiscuity. Meanwhile, women are dying. It's clear where their priorities lie.

I never knew that Dobson was so in favor of civil rights and that his church has a proud tradition of opposing slavery. But the next step in his fight is to save the institution of marriage. You have got to hear him speak. Via Media Matters.

I am particularly moved by his description of his last breath. How over the top can one get.

And I'll tell you, with my last few breaths on this Earth, the first thing I want to do is tell my precious wife Shirley how much I love her, and my children, and I will have grandchildren by then -- and my daughter-in-law Laura; I'll tell them how much I love them. Then, I hope to say, "Save the institution of the family — it's that important."

Thursday, June 08, 2006

In the republican primaries in South Dakota, a republican who opposed the draconian abortion ban has been defeated. Of course, those in favor of the ban now claim that this means that the fight is over. But you know who comes out to vote in these primary elections: republican zealots with him Lesley Unruh stands a chance. Not the rest of the state. Nevertheless, a lot of work remains to be done and the defeat of this ban is uncertain.

I like what yahoo has done: devote a site to gay pride. I can't help it. Yahoo shows pride. The entire arsenal of yahoo webtools is there. Calenders, flickr photos, blogs and podcasts, a travel section and a way to get involved. Bookmark this for all your news this coming month.

By the way, did you know that the word "flickr" is originally a Dutch word "flikker." It is the word we used in Holland to show our gay pride and is like queer, fag, fairy, gay all wrapped into one word. Say it with a lot of pride and a lot of fight. Ah, the 70s, those were the days.

Male big horn sheep live in what are often called “homosexual societies.” They bond through genital licking and anal intercourse, which often ends in ejaculation. If a male sheep chooses to not have gay sex, it becomes a social outcast. Ironically, scientists call such straight-laced males “effeminate.”

Giraffes have all-male orgies. So do bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, gray whales, and West Indian manatees. Japanese macaques, on the other hand, are ardent lesbians; the females enthusiastically mount each other. Bonobos, one of our closest primate relatives, are similar, except that their lesbian sexual encounters occur every two hours. Male bonobos engage in “penis fencing,” which leads, surprisingly enough, to ejaculation. They also give each other genital massages.

As this list of activities suggests, having homosexual sex is the biological equivalent of apple pie: Everybody likes it. At last count, over 450 different vertebrate species could be beheaded in Saudi Arabia. You name it, there’s a vertebrate out there that does it.

So they voted it down. Big surprise. Much has been said. Kennedy added his two cents:

Senate rejects gay marriage ban - Yahoo! News: "'The Republican leadership is asking us to spend time writing bigotry into the Constitution,' said Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage in 2003. 'A vote for it is a vote against civil unions, against domestic partnership, against all other efforts for states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law.'

In response, Hatch fumed: 'Does he really want to suggest that over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots?'"

Monday, June 05, 2006

It's not just Bush.....Today, fully one half of the American people do not believe gay and lesbian families should have access to the full rights, privileges and responsibilities that civil marriage allows. Most Americans....including many gay people themselves do not even begin to get what this lack of equality means for themselves and society more broadly.

Bill Frist, Bush and cronies say that the future of children and family itself rests on the exclusion of gay and lesbian families from marriage. This is their big rally cry....their a la carte issue of the day.... the one they keep using and abusing to stir hatred in their supporters.... Much like Hitler and the Nazis did when they said that Jews required extermination so as not to taint the gene pool of perfect Aryan families....

Seems ridiculously stupid.....but it is not....it is completely strategic and venomous in ways that most people do not even begin to understand....a kind of deep historical hatred that keeps bubbling back up....time and time again whenever needed....to unite those who would consider themselves better than others.

At a time when people are being genocidally slaughtered in Darfur, blown up in Iraq, eliminated by AIDS (even after 25 years of the disease) and unable en masse to access quality healthcare or basic literacy....conservatives are focused on writing, for the first time in U.S. history, discrimination against a specific category of Americans into the Constitution....

Saturday, June 03, 2006

And as soon as I thought I had something to say about the democrats, someone one the dailykos pointed out that the Democratic party's website has these two top stories. I was happy to see them, and a bit embarrassed, I will admit, that I had to be pointed to these stories. It is good to be in conversation and to stand corrected when it really matters.

Don't Trample on LGBT Americans for Partisan GainIt's an election year, and Republicans are in deep trouble. Instead of addressing the things Americans really care about, they're trying to change the subject and use wedge issues in hopes of distracting from their failures and dividing Americans to win elections.

Proclamation on LGBT PRIDE Month On behalf of Democrats across America, we join together in honoring the contributions that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and their families make to our society and reaffirming our Party's abiding commitment to full equality for all Americans, including the LGBT community.

It was a matter of time before Bush was going to join the discrimination crowd to make political headway. He is supporting the gay marriage amendment. And the left is reacting in its usual pooh-pooh way. I am more and more annoyed by the so-called smart progressives over at dailykos, who only can say that Bush is wasting his time. OK, perhaps they mention that there was once a law that made marriage between people of different skin colors impossible. I can be gracious and assume that they are so in favor of gay rights that they deem it unworthy to even discuss. But that kind of arrogance is dangerous.

I remain dubious about Bush's folly. He Has been cajoled into doing this by powerful allies on the conservative right. It might be me, but I suppose that Bush must have been convinced that once again, these far right wingers will go and bring out the vote for him. He didn't just panic and do this, he—or Karl Rove—calculated that this would increase their standing.

In this morning's New York Times, some right wingers suggest exactly that. Republican senator Mike DeWine is picking up the gay bashing banner and local anti-gay organizer Phil Burress says that "it's going to send him back to Washington." That kind of confidence should not be underestimated. The republicans know how to play the fear and discrimination card extremely well, and silence or mockery on the opposite site is not doing anything to stop them.

So here is my question. Where are the democrats? It might just be, let's be generous, that they believe that this issue is finally going to blow up in the republicans face. The right is not sufficiently emboldened anymore to go out in great numbers for the vote, and the rest of the country will be turned off by them. Democrats don't want to be the target in the mean time. Steve Bennen at the Washington Monthly seems to think that fundamentalist christians are indeed not sufficiently convinced that Bush is sincere. Shocker there. This is the generous view.

Wouldn't it be good though to hear a democrat or a progressive say that this is a country in which we don't discriminate. To go on the attack against Bush, now that he is vulnerable. It is not enough to say that this is mere politics. Instead of mocking him, ridiculing him, couldn't we attack him and settle for once and for all that discrimination is an unacceptable campaign strategy. Really, isn't that a value that we stand for? I am skeptical of silence when people are victimized. I don't care if that silence takes the form of mockery as the dailykos people seem to prefer. Silence is silence, and in the eyes of blatant oppression and discrimination, silence kills too.

Friday, June 02, 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President George W. Bush will promote a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the eve of a Senate vote next week, weighing in on an issue that could rally his wavering conservative base in an election year.

Though the proposed constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage stands little chance of passing, it is one of several hot-button causes Republicans are championing to appeal to right-wing voters ahead of November's congressional ballot.

Bush planned to use his weekly radio address on Saturday and a White House speech on Monday to push for the amendment that would allow states to recognize only marriages between men and women, administration officials said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President George W. Bush will promote a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the eve of a Senate vote next week, weighing in on an issue that could rally his wavering conservative base in an election year.

Though the proposed constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage stands little chance of passing, it is one of several hot-button causes Republicans are championing to appeal to right-wing voters ahead of November's congressional ballot.

Bush planned to use his weekly radio address on Saturday and a White House speech on Monday to push for the amendment that would allow states to recognize only marriages between men and women, administration officials said on Friday.

WASHINGTON - When President Bush beat John Kerry in 2004, Republicans said a ballot initiative in Ohio to ban gay marriage sealed the election, drawing legions of conservatives to the polls.

It seems ridiculous, but it's true: there are two wars going badly for the United States, thousands of people are dying homeless at home, and so forth--but the great initiatives the Senate has for us are antigay sentiment and the bizarre worry that burning the flags in protest will somehow hurt the military's strength and morale. Sheesh.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Today, I sent this letter to the Dean of Northwestern University's graduate school:

Dear Dean Wachtel,

I received a letter today, signed by you, in which you request that I make a donation to the graduate school. As a graduate of Northwestern University's graduate school, I must emphatically say that I will not. You have disgraced the scientific community when you refused to disclose a report detailing the alleged ethical misconduct of J. Michael Bailey of the psychology department. As you know, some of the individuals who he interviewed for his book The Man who would be Queen on transgenders accused him of ethical violation of the most serious kind: he did not disclose to them that they were research subjects, and did not receive informed consent. One even alleged sexual contact with him as the research was ongoing. These are very serious allegations and I am ashamed to be associated with Northwestern University.

In my view, if the findings had indeed shown that these allegations were false, the university would not have hesitated to make these public. However, since we are dealing with a population with very little political cloud, a population that has little sway with the public, you were not forced to give a full disclosure of the findings and you chose to retain J. Michael Bailey as a tenured faculty member. The only effect was his removal from the chair of the department.

You make a statement on the graduate school's website about diversity. I don't believe you. Promoting diversity sometimes means that you have to be an ally to oppressed people against the faculty member who appears in the news paper every now and then. You cannot have it both ways.

I realize that this matter is already a couple of years old, but the stain on your school remains.

Niels Teunis

Assistant Professor

San Francisco State University

In case you wonder what this is all about, read the information on this website. And then you can read Bailey's own reply to the controversy his book caused. Note that he does not mention the ethical violations he is accused of.

This all happened a few years ago, but I am not allowing him to live it down.

About

Voices of American Sexuality represents a bold leap for both American Sexuality magazine and the National Sexuality Resource Center. We've done a heck of a lot of work to build sexuality dialogues around the country and around the world, and now (some would say finally) we've moved in to the 21st century. We at AmSex hope this forum becomes useful, interesting and fun for you and yours, and that it enhances your experience of sexual literacy, sexual well being and sexual health!